


“stay over.”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [66]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Childhood Friends, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Female Friendship, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22777207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Daisy runs from the Wells household after a fight with her parents and turns to the Freebodys after remembering that her dear Watson is unavailable because she is nine-thousand six hundred miles away.Modern AUWritten for the sixty-sixth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Daisy Wells & Kitty Freebody
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [66]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	“stay over.”

I am halfway to Hazel’s house before it occurs to me that she’s in Hong Kong.

_ Fuck _ .

**Watson:** Are you alright, Daisy?

**Me:** Another fight.

**Watson:** Oh, Daisy. Who was it with?

**Me:** Mother. About Bertie and I, and our sexualities again. Mother brought Harold into the equation, so Bertie smashed a plate against the dining-room door and ran out.

**Watson:** Does she still believe that it’s a phase?

**Me:** You hit the nail on the head there, Watson.

**Watson:** Good grief. I’m so sorry this keeps happening to you. Your mother really is ridiculous, you deserve a much better mother than her.

**Me:** Can I move in with you, Hazel?

**Watson:** Come with me to Hong Kong next time? I’m sure Jie-Jie and my father wouldn’t mind. My ma might mind but I can bring her around.

**Me:** That would be wonderful.

**Watson:** It’s a deal then. I’ll book the tickets when I get back.

**Me:** You’re a saint, Hazel Wong.

**Watson:** I’ve been called a lot but a saint is rare.

**Me:** You are. But I will not say that often so you will have to simply remember that.

**Watson:** I just got out of the room, call?

_ Watson is calling… _

I answer after two seconds. “Hazel!”

“Daisy!”

There’s a moment of pause and then Hazel says, “Ah Lan just got a jelly upended down his white button-up because he flirted with someone who was  _ not  _ into it. How has your evening been?”

“Well, I was about to walk to your house before realising that you aren’t in the country, so now I’m miserably shivering outside the tube station,” I tell her, feeling the cold sting against my skin. “Bertie stormed out earlier in the evening. I think that he’s hiding out at the Mukherjee’s. I don’t know where to go.”

A sigh travels down the phone, and I close my eyes and imagine her leaning up against the wall in the thick heat outside her family dining room, wearing a Chinese dress with her hair up in a twist of jade, perhaps with flowers threaded into it. “Go to Kitty’s.”

“I don’t know where she lives!” I object, which is just an exclamation in place of everything else wrong with that idea.

“I’ll text it to you,” she says, and I hear a voice call out from the other end of the line.

“Hazel? Or rather… Miss Hazel, as I am supposed to say. Your father wants you. Go and boast about your British education to all these rich and powerful white investors.”

“Ass,” Hazel retorts with a smile in her voice, talking to someone I know to be Ah Lan. “I’ll be texting you all night, Daisy. Stay safe.”

“Have fun, Watson.”

* * *

I swallow my pride and I end up on the Freebody’s front doorstep, soaked to the skin.

“Hello?” Binny asks as she opens the door, in a pair of fluffy pyjamas. “Oh! It’s  _ Daisy Wells _ .”

“You say my name in the same way that a normal twelve-year-olds say broccoli,” I tell her, watching as water drips from the bridge of my nose and onto my shoes.

Binny Freebody is in that stage of her life where she’s twelve and lives in a state of ‘no one look at me or I’ll kill myself’. It’s irritating to exist around.

“KITTY!” she screams back into the house at the top of her lungs.

Kitty clatters down the stairs, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a jumper with what is supposed to look like newspaper clippings patterned all over. “Who is i—  _ Daisy _ ?”

“Hi.” I look up from staring at my shoes and into her eyes. Her brown hair is tied back in tight plaits to make it curl, and her blue eyes focus on me in an astonished way. “I got kicked out.”

Her breath hitches so noticeably that I hear it from across the hall. “Permanently?”

“No. Just a fight.”

With a sigh, she rushes down the last of the stairs and across to me, wrapping me in her arms in an action that astonishes me. “I—”

“God. What is wrong with your fucking life?”

“I don’t know,” I whimpered, sounding much more pathetic than I mean to as I grasp the back of her shirt and burrow my dripping wet nose into my shoulder.

She steps back and pushes her plaits back over her shoulders. “Where’s your brother?”

“At his boyfriend’s, I assume.”

Her eyes are full of pity as she looks at me. “Christ, Daisy, I—”

“I don’t need pity,” I snap, filling my voice with as much venom as I possibly can.

“No,” Kitty agrees in a voice just as level. “You need food.”

She turns and glares at Binny, who is pretending that she isn’t hovering in the doorway of the lounge and peering out at us with gossip about to spill out of her lips. With a small noise of faux innocence, she opens her mouth and screams, “MUMMY!”

Mrs Freebody comes bustling out of the kitchen, gasping when she sees me. For a moment, I am offended until I realise what a sorry sight I must look: I’m dripping wet in a 2018 Deepdean Ski Trip hoodie and jeans, my shoes are caked in mud, and my hair is an absolute disaster. “Hello, Mrs Freebody. I promise that I’m a human being and not a possessed teenager trying to infiltrate your house.” I complete this with an awkward wave.

“Oh, Daisy, dear!” she cries, running over to me and taking me under the chin to look me in the eyes. “What happened?”

“Nothing too serious, only that my parents have been fighting,” I reply, as nonchalant as possible.

In the way that adults tend to do because they cannot comprehend my general existence, she blinks and shakes her head, and then points up the stairs. “Kitty, be a dear and get your friend some clothes.”

With a start, Kitty nods and grabs my sleeve. “Come on, Daisy!”

Still quite unable to comprehend how I ended up at the  _ Freebody  _ household, I allow her to drag me up the creaking and carpeted stairs and into her bedroom, which looks as if a tornado blew through it five minutes ago.

_ How did I end up here? _

_ Oh. Right. Hazel. _

In a rather violent sweep of her arms, I am deposited onto her bed as she goes to her wardrobe to drag out her least offensive clothes. “Why didn’t you go to Hazel’s?”

“She’s on holiday,” I reply, wringing some water from my hair and watching it drop onto my shodden jeans. “And you aren’t so bad.”

She laughs. “Thanks, Daisy.” She turns around, not holding clothes but instead a set of pyjamas. “Stay over.”

“Really?”

With an eye roll, she says, “You’re an idiot,” and throws the pyjamas at me. Astonished, I catch them. I’m also furious with myself: how did I not notice that she would invite me to stay? How did I not pick it up?

Perhaps the tears are blurring my mind too.

“Now, what do you want to watch on Netflix?”


End file.
